Wednesday, March 27, 2013

....Dinner at Gulf Wars XXII

Right so....I'm in this Medieval Recreation group called the Society for Creative Anachronism (see weblink
below), and we do events where we camp in glorious fashion and wear the
guises of people who could have lived back in the days of antiquity.
The most recent event for me was GulfWars XXII, put on by the Kingdom of GleannAbhann. Here, much like at Pennsic there are a growing number of people who are gluten intolerant.

The
meal my team and I cooked was a dinner, Stuffed Cabbage, hand made
Pirogi, Fresh Green Salad, with Hungarian Tomato Sauce, Ukrainian
Mushroom Sauce, Caramelised Onion, Sour Cream for
garnishes and Balsamic Vinaigrette for the dressing. In the past, my
tomato sauce was made the way my Great-Grandmother made it, with
breadcrumbs, which put it on the no fly list for gluten intolerant
folk.

Buckwheat
to the rescue! Alright maybe that's a little over dramatic. But
really, buckwheat made it so that the only wheat we used was in the
pirogi dough. I tried to make a buckwheat version of the pirogi dough,
but found the texture was rougher than the wheat, it didn't hold up as
well to shaping the dumplings and really really needed some salt. I've
reckoned that an egg would help with the texture and the wrapping around
the filling, and salt would improve the flavour. I'll be experimenting
with several different grains in later blogs and have pics of how they
came out.

In
that moment, buckwheat pirogi failed, but I think I know how to fix it
to bring it around to usable. Everything else that night went
beautifully. The recipes below contain the ingredients and mostly the
procedures for making the various sides, garnishes and main dishes.

Stuffed Cabbage, Hungarian and Russian style

2 heads of Savoy Cabbage (regular green cabbage can be substituted)

2 pounds of Ground Beef

4 cups pound of Basmati Rice

6 cups water

Olive Oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Granulated Garlic

Granulated Onion

Hungarian Paprika

Dried Parsley, ground in the hand

Cook the rice:

1.) In a large sauce pot, heat some olive oil on medium high heat.

2.) Add rice to sauce pot, toast gently, stirring frequently, until some of the rice is golden brown.

3.) Pour the water on top of the rice and bring to a boil.

4.) Turn down the heat to low and cover, check on the rice frequently, stirring.

5.)
When the rice is cook all the way through the grain and the water has
all been absorbed by the rice, take off heat and empty into a bowl in
preparation to mix the stuffing.

Soften the Cabbages:1.) Cut the core out of the cabbages, place them in a bowl or pan one at a time.

2.) Boil some water, in a kettle would be the easiest way.

3.) Pour boiling water over the cabbage to loosen the leaves, cooking them just enough that they're flexible.

4.) Separate the cabbage leaves carefully, they will be hot. Allow them to cool before handling further.

Mix the Stuffing:

1.) When the rice is done cooking, empty the pot into a large mixing bowl.

2.) Add the ground beef, not waiting for the rice to cool at all.

3.) Add the seasonings.

4.) Mix with a stiff spoon or spatula until the meat and rice are well distributed.

Stuff the Cabbage
Leaves:

0.) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

1.)
Take a cool cabbage leaf into your "off hand", use a large table spoon
or soup spoon to scoop the stuffing into the cabbage leave in your hand.

2.) Fold the sides in first, nice and snug on the clump of stuffing.

3.) Fold down the rib or spine side of the cabbage leaf

4.)
Fold down the top edge of the cabbage leaf, creating a lovely little
parcel enveloped in greenery. The stuffed cabbage will now be upside
down in your hand.

5.)
Turn the stuffed cabbage so that the folded edges are down (holding it
closed with your fingers) as you put it into a deep baking pan. (I use 2
,9"x13" cake pans lined in aluminium foil)

6.) Repeat until the tray is filled or you run out of ingredients.

7.) OPTIONAL: Cover with the tomato sauce below.

8.) When the pan is filled, cover tightly with aluminium foil and bake at 375 degrees F. for two hours.

NOTE:

Traditionally
in Hungarian cooking, this recipe is made with 1 pound of ground Beef,
and 1 pound of ground pork. Because one of my team mates doesn't eat
pork, I opted to substitute the pound of pork for a pound of beef. You
could use ground turkey, or very finely chopped mushrooms to substitute
for people who don't eat meat, or just don't eat meat with kind of a
reddish hue.

1.) Mix
together gently until everything is incorporated, you can use a food processor on low speed. It should
be firm enough to hold together, elastic enough to stretch, but not as
stiff as noodle dough and should not stick to your hand.

2.) Let rest for a
little while before rolling out. You might need to add more or less
water, depending on the mineral content of your water. At Gulf Wars, we
had to add more water to get the dough to be proper texture.

1.) Mash the
potatoes with a hand masher or potato ricer. You don't want to use a
hand mixer or stand mixer because you don't want to whip air into the
potatoes. You want them to be smooth and not lumpy though. Don't add any milk or butter to them.

2.) Mix the mashed potatoes with the cheese, salt, pepper and some of the caramelised onion.

3.) Taste the mixture, adjusting the salt and pepper and onion as needed.

4.) Let cool significantly before handling.

Stuffing the Dough:1.)
Put a large pot on the stove on high heat, add salt and oil to the
water and bring to a boil. Once it boils, you can turn down the temperature to medium to keep the water hot enough to cook the pirogi.2.) Melt a stick of butter and hold it in reserve, keeping it liquid through the rest of the process.3.) Roll out the dough until it's about 1/8th of an inch thick.4.) Cut out rounds of dough with a cutter or glass that is about 2 inches in diameter.5.) Spoon in the filling, remembering that the dough has to pinch closed, so be careful not to add too much filling6.) Fold
over so that the dumpling is shaped like a half moon and pinch the
edges together, making sure that you get a good seal. If you run into
trouble, either run a finger lightly wet around the inside of the seam
and pinch, or dust your fingers with flour and pinch harder.7.) Lay each dumpling on a floured tray, keeping them separated so that they don't stick together.8.) Gently
place 6-12 dumplings at a time in the simmering water, when they float to
the surface scoop them out with a slotted spoon. 9.) Coat the finished Pirogi in melted butter to help them stay separate. They can be served right away, or fried or frozen

Tomato Sauce, Hungarian style

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

24 ounce can of plain tomato sauce

4 ounce can of plain tomato paste

granulated garlic

granulated onion

Hungarian paprika

freshly ground black pepper

dried parsley, ground fine in the palm of the hand

1.) Melt the butter on medium high heat.

2.) Add in the buckwheat flour to start a basic roux.

3.) Add in the vinegar - Be careful not to inhale the vapours, they will knock you over.

4.) When the roux has thickened, add in the tomato sauce slowly, mixing constantly to incorporate the roux

5.) Add the tomato paste

6.) Add the herb and spices

You'll
note that I didn't give amounts for the seasonings. I honestly don't
know how much I put in, it's a pinch here and there until I think it
tastes right. They should be background notes, not even co-stars for
the sauce, there to give a little extra flavour without being too
noticeable.

My
Great Grandmother never served this sauce with the stuffed cabbage, but
in other Eastern European countries they do. You make the cabbage
rolls, pour the sauce over the top and cook it all together. I served
some of it sauce on the side, some of it cooked in the sauce so that
people could make up their own minds as to how they liked it best.

2.) Add the mushrooms and cook on
medium low heat for about 10-12 minutes.

3.) Sprinkle with the flour and
mix.

4.) Pour in the stock and stir constantly until smooth and thick.

5.) Add
the sour cream and cook for a few more minutes.

6.) Serve hot.

Caramelised Onions

6 tablespoons of Olive Oil

3 lbs yellow onions

4 tablespoons
water

1.) On medium high heat, warm up the oil in a sauce pan

2.) Peel the paper off the onions, cut in half, slice
thinly.

3.) Add the onions to the pan, stirring frequently.

4.) After a few minutes reduce the heat to more of a low end of medium, stir in the water and
cover.

5.) Stir occasionally, when the onions are a golden brown colour they're finished. You can keep them in a refrigerator for around a week.When they smell like vinegar, they've gone off. They can nicely too.

Our
Green Salad was beautifully made by Tyg, Romaine lettuce and Spinach were the base and she cut carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, a white onion, and broccoli and provided croutons and sunflower seeds for the salads, which we presented separately so that people could mix and match and build their own salad. The dressing was one I learned to make when I was an apprentice chef at a French restaurant.

Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

In a large mixing bowl add:

Blend well together.

4 cups Canola Oil

Whisk in the oil VERY SLOWLY pausing the pouring every now and
again to make sure as much of the oil is fully incorporated before
adding more oil. This can take as much as 20 minutes to get all the oil
into your vinegar. If you just can't seem to get all of it
incorporated, add a little more mustard to emulsify the mixture. Adjust
your seasonings as needed, remembering that once it's in there, it's
not coming back out. This is a delicate process, so if you're going to
use a stand or hand mixer, use a low setting and wire whisks.

This
will make nearly 7 cups of salad dressing. Any vinegar can be used to
make a dressing with these proportions, though most people will find
white vinegar too astringent. You can also add herbs and peppers to
white balsamic vinegar make Italian style dressing, or crushed, fresh
berries for a berry vinaigrette.

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About Me

I guess you could say that I'm a mother of two artistic daughters. I'm also largely self educated, self taught, multimedia artist, writer of several genres of mostly fiction, crafter of way too many crafts, semi-professional chef, occasional costumer, arm chair historian & anthropologist, novice gardener, player of a wide variety of games, and more I haven't remember that I do at the moment.

Lately I'm in something of a no-mans land between Geek and Nerd, though I've been a dork and a spazz in the past as well. ADD and so much to be excited about in the world will do that for you, I suppose. Despite straddling the Geek/Nerd border, I tend to think of myself as a Ludite, despite the fact that I have two computers, an xbox and generally live with some bit of tech in my hands at nearly all times.

The purpose of this blog is to catalog my projects and experiments, stunning failures to maybe it worked to minor successes, and if possible actual victories.

I will gladly entertain tips, useful tricks and actual knowledge and even honest critisisms, I will not tolerate annoying spam or childish flaming. If you don't have something relevant and meaningful to say, please don't waste your time or mine.